S. Kovalevskaja gymnasium will change its name, S. Nėries gymnasium is also being considered

S. Kovalevskaja Gymnasium will become Vilnius Capital Gymnasium at the request of the community.

At that time, when deciding on the S. Nėries high school, the council approved only the initiative to change the name, and not the specific name.

Last week, proposals for new school names were approved by the Historical Memory Commission of the municipality on the initiative of the institutions themselves.

The decision regarding the S. Kovalevskaja gymnasium in the council is final, and the issue regarding the S. Nėris gymnasium will still be considered by the council committees, the exact name is to be decided later.

The community of Salomeja Nėries high school was offered St. Kotryna’s name was second on the list, the school gave priority to the name of the Vilnius Media Gymnasium, but the commission found such a proposal to be short-lived.

As Kamilė Šēraitė-Gogelienė, the chairperson of the Historical Memory Commission, told BNS, before the council meeting, the municipality received a letter from the S. Nėries gymnasium that the teachers do not approve of St. Kotryna’s name, so the politicians of the capital did not make a decision on a specific name.

“As we heard for the first time when the school applied for a renaming, today we hear them as well and we will certainly not rush if the school itself does not agree with the name that was initially proposed,” said K. Šeraitė-Gogelienė.

According to her, the municipality will ask the school to decide on how it would like to be renamed in regarding a month – before the next council meeting.

However, during the meeting, the mayor of the capital, Valdas Benkunskas, said that more time will be given to the discussion on the name and the decision will be made when it is presented “at the next or the next meeting”.

“We would like to close (the issue – BNS) as soon as possible, but there will be no rush,” the mayor asserted.

Council members raised the question of why it was decided to name S. Kovalevskaja’s gymnasium following the Capital.

“What kind of ignoramus came up with the idea of ​​renaming the school,” asked council member Jaroslav Kaminski.

Alina Kowalewska, chief advisor of the Vilnius municipality administration, emphasized that the name was proposed by the school community itself.

“The school made such a decision, several options were considered, but one was chosen,” said A. Kowalewska.

Sofia Kovalevskaja Gymnasium wants to change its name due to possible confusion with other educational institutions. In addition, the school previously followed a mathematical direction, but now it is changing, so it is argued that the name of the mathematician S. Kovalevskaja is no longer appropriate.

At that time, discussions regarding the name of the Salomeja Nėries high school have been going on for some time.

Some alumni organizations, among them Vytautas the Great Gymnasium and Lithuanian University of Education Alumni Association, following the decision of the historical commission, applied to the Vilnius Municipality with a request to grant Salomeja Nėries Gymnasium a non-St. Kotryna, but the name of Duchess Birutė.

On Wednesday, the so-called de-Sovietization commission considered the issue of giving the poetess’s name to public objects, and decided that the streets named following S. Nėries in Lithuania promote the totalitarian regime, so they must be renamed.

Together with other writers, S. Nėris created poetry and prose praising the Soviet government. In 1940, as a delegate of the People’s Seimas, she went to Moscow with a request to accept Lithuania into the Soviet Union.